Nelson makes formal request that Navy place nuclear carrier at Mayport

January 28, 2005

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Seeking to avoid another possible Pearl Harbor-like disaster, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson today launched an effort to move one of the Navy's four nuclear aircraft carriers, based in Norfolk, Virginia, to Jacksonville's Mayport Naval Station. Nelson urged the head of Navy operations, Adm. Vernon Clark, to make the move quickly due to the security threat posed by having nearly half the country's nuclear carrier fleet based in one location.

"I am convinced that the nation requires more than one Atlantic coast naval station capable of home-porting nuclear aircraft carriers as a matter of strategic urgency and risk mitigation," Nelson, a member of the Senate Armed Services panel, wrote in his letter to Clark. "I urge you to rapidly establish a second nuclear carrier base at Naval Station Mayport - and, issue the appropriate orders and budgetary guidance required to implement such as decision."

Presently Mayport only lacks the maintenance facilities necessary to house a nuclear carrier. The Navy has recently indicated to Nelson that it is actively studying the requirements and costs of completing these improvements - a move that increases the likelihood that Jacksonville could eventually become the home of a nuclear-powered carrier.

The push to relocate a carrier from Norfolk to Jacksonville follows recent efforts led by Nelson in the Senate and U.S. Rep. Ander Crenshaw in the House to fight a defense department plan to reduce the nation's carrier fleet by one, from twelve to eleven. That decision would lead to getting rid of the non-nuclear, Mayport-based carrier USS John F. Kennedy.

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